Chun Pan's Profile

The nice thing is Wave supports all headsets, including Google cardboard ($15, I got mine free with Coachella tickets last year…) so barriers to trying it out are pretty low. I love your idea about co-innovating!

Hey Kyla! I agree that WaveVR can’t replace real-life concerts and I feel like their goal is not to replace but rather supplement / grow the pie of live music. The demand for live music (I believe) will always be there. However, live music access is limited (physical capacity, cost, etc.). WaveVR provides a superior solution that’s the closest to what a real experience is like vs current offerings…
2D live-streaming is not satisfying at all. I can see WaveVR catering to this different “job to be done” – those who aren’t at the concert but want an enhanced streaming experience. I agree with you that they have a ton of opportunity still to improve their social features.

Hey Alex – great point. I agree that interaction with friends is another important aspect of live music. WaveVR has a couple of features to facilitate virtual interactions: 1. lobbies where friends can hang out / chat, 2. ability to message friends during a concert, 3. option to go to 1:1 “side shows” where friends or strangers can have more personal interaction.

I believe WaveVR is the first virtual platform focused specifically on music. They differntiate by providing artists with sophisticated ways of creating visuals, which is unique to the music segment. I believe other live entertainment VR platforms don’t provide artists with such tools.

Nice post David. Besides pricing, how is Unity superior to competing platforms (you mentioned Unreal4) and do you think Unity has an opportunity to lure other platforms’ customers away with its sophisticated & easy-to-use VR development tools?

Great question. One way governments could incentivize is to make an emotional plea – it could appeal to people’s sense of duty by messaging citizens how helping neighboring districts would indirectly improve their own neighborhoods via lifting overall economy.

Apple Music and Spotify only allow vetted labels / “legitimate players” to upload music. Soundcloud lets anyone upload, so it could differentiate by being more of a niche player with indie / up and coming bands or a collaboration tool for musicians (Google Docs for musicians), which is the model they originally started out with.

Definitely! I feel like the team has focused too much on creating value via designing a great product and not enough on actually capturing value – perhaps based on fear of losing users.

In general I don’t think Flipboard’s been too sophisticated with monetization. It could and should test different models. I think they’ve been scared to charge users directly because US consumers are so used to the ads-based model. However we now see more and more apps monetizing via subscriptions. As consumers become more comfortable with subscriptions, Flipboard could try going that route. Flipboard could even asking for donations (similar to what Wikipedia does).

Great post Felix! Does Baobab release 2D versions of its films as well? If not, why not and do you think they should? Given the slower than anticipated adoption of VR, making enough revenue to fund its pipeline of high quality production might be hard if they only focus on creating VR films. You mentioned licensing its characters to Disney and other brands, but why not just adapt its films to 2D and sell those?

Hi Boris. This is a really interesting use case for VR. Although if the client goes to the therapist just to interact with Physio, I can foresee resistance from physical therapists because VR Physio decreases their value add and could possibly even eliminate the need for them?
On the other hand, going direct to consumer would also have many issues because of the high price point, need to educate consumers, and potentially regulatory barriers. How do you think Physio should deal with these distribution channel challenges?

Love this analysis. I wonder whether real estate pricing will ever become purely a science though since humans do have irrational tendencies. I’m thinking about a situation where a buyer absolutely has to have the house and ends up paying way higher than the predicted sales price.
Also, if I’m selling my house to OpenDoor, I’d still do some due diligence to make sure OpenDoor isn’t lowballing me, which decreases their value prop of streamlining the research process. But that might just be me.

Nice post Megan. The baby example is fascinating. A question I have is how Target is able to accurately track an individual’s different transactions over time? I understand that in the baby registry example the user has a profile tied with all their transactions. But what about the rest of Target’s shoppers? I can see challenges with building a comprehensive profile. I know CVS and other drugstores do it via their loyalty cards but I don’t recall Target having one.

Love the post Sonali. I wonder whether the core issue is their subscribers using other platforms to purchase full-sized products. BirchBox needs solid data on what users actually purchase to figure out an individual’s preferences and understand how to truly personalize future boxes. However it sounds like users don’t have much incentive to purchase on BirchBox’s platform (beyond a weak reward from writing reviews)…If a user already has Prime on Amazon and / or Sephora VIB, the user may simply purchase on those platforms instead, for speed or to build up their other loyalty accounts. As a result BirchBox can’t improve its box / value prop for customers since it doesn’t have data on every step of the entire customer purchase journey. Thoughts?

Cool post Anish. I’ve used Quora since its early days and still browse it for fun on occasions. I’ve noticed that more and more posts are authored by “anonymous,” and there seems to have been an increase in “anonymous” answers as well. These posts are usually more scandalous and of way lower quality, since there is no reputation risk to the writer.

Do you think Quora should remove the ability to post anonymously in order to revert back to higher quality content? Or do you think net-net posting anonymously is beneficial for the platform?

Nice post James! I haven’t noticed this new feature on TripAdvisor so it’s interesting to read your summary + feedback on it. The problem with providing an “overall” score is each person weighs different factors contributing to “the one” score differently. For me, value and cleanliness is are most important whereas legroom is not too important (I’m 5 6 so it’s never an issue). For a tall person, it’d be a different story. Hence, I find the breakdown under “Rating Summary” useful but overall score, not so much.

I wonder whether TripAdvisor could let users reveal preferences by letting them stack rank or weight rank the different factors. TripAdvisor could then calculate “Personalized Overall Score,” enabling a user to quickly compare across airlines in a relevant manner. That would be amazing!

Great post Sonali! Iodine is a really interesting platform. I wonder whether they could monetize by targeting users who’ve had negative experiences with a certain drug (say, Aspirin) with promotions on similar drugs (Ibuprofen or whatnot). When users post a negative review (as indicated by wouldn’t recommend), have users select the negative symptoms they’ve had, then surface an “[X drug] can alleviate your problems without the negative side effects you’ve indicated. Ask your doctor about [X]!” ad. Of course Iodine would have to be careful with this route as to not anger the negative drug’s maker, but realistically the maker has already lost that customer.

Totally agree. The discovery / sharing element weakens if majority of users (who don’t pay) consuming Stream sees a bunch of content locked behind Go. But I speculate this is an issue for SoundCloud’s peers – Go-only tracks are owned by large labels and the labels are probably demanding similar treatment on Spotify and other platforms. As long as SoundCloud is on parity with other platforms on free vs paid content, it can keep users on with its strong retention features.

Great post Anish! Yelp is one of my most frequently used apps so I am definitely a fan. Speaking of Zomato – when I was in Australia and NZ, I had to download it since Yelp’s presence is weak. However Zomato’s search results are horrific. When I entered a search word the app would only show results with the exact word in the restaurant name and some other seemingly irrelevant locations…Zomato is also super disorganized (no captions on photos, etc.). It seems like you’ve taken on the stance that Yelp should not aggressively expand to regions with dominant players but do you see a way for Yelp to win with its superior product in those markets?

Nice piece Lidiya – I worked at Fitbit this past summer so it’s exciting to hear James finally revealing the ‘grand plan’ to the street!

You mentioned there are many players in this space including Nike, etc. Fitbit’s major differentiating factor is its social ecosystem – many consumers ultimately decide to purchase Fitbit because they can engage in competition and other social + gamification elements on the software platform. Do you think Fitbit can leverage this existing unique asset (social components + data) to win in healthcare, and if so, what do you think are some ways to do so?

Nice title Felix! On the point of Amazon trying to enter this market – even if Amazon gets to feature and price parity w/Etsy, do you think Handmade would still be a threat? Is Etsy’s core buyer segment is still the “Brooklyn, hipster, anti-large corporation” and if so, would they ever even consider buying from a huge, established player like Amazon given their beliefs? Perhaps Etsy could partner with KOLs in handmade crafts to create a blog to strengthen the unique / curated aspect of their brand.

Thanks for this Cassie. Sad to see Nest adoption hasn’t picked up since it was one of the first IoT devices that got a ton of PR, etc. back in the day. Sounds like price is the main issue here for the average consumer. Given that Google owns Nest, wonder whether there’s a “loss leader” play where Google sells it at a loss but in return, gets data from the customer, which it can add to what it knows about you already and monetize via advertisers or other partners (heaters w/less energy consumption, home insulation products…?). However since Nest only controls temperature data, the value of that data may be insignificant. Do you have thoughts on the subsidy-by-giving-away-personal-data model?
Its marketing messaging also appears problematic. Do you think Nest could come up with a simple and compelling cost savings or save-the-earth messaging? I’ve definitely accidentally left heating on while out of the house and gotten hit with massive energy bills ($100+ for the month!) so I can see myself being convinced to get one.

Interesting post! Nordstrom’s brick and mortar stores stood out to me because of its superior in-person customer service and more pleasant shopping environment. However, those elements are not present on eCommerce, and Nordstrom’s website, offerings, shipping times, etc. look similar to those of its rivals. Do you have any thoughts on what features/elements Nordstrom could incorporate on its digital offerings to distinguish itself from competitors?

Love your post! Sephora is one of my favorite stores, partly because of the ‘discovery’-oriented atmosphere. At the same time, the try/play strategy is also why I return a ton of products back to Sephora, especially if it’s an online purchase..Their great return policy means I’m encouraged to purchase a ton of items online, try them out, and return the many that don’t work out. Costs associated with returns is one of the biggest expenses for retailers and I’m guessing it’s the same if not even worse for Sephora (Sephora employees told me returned items are discarded). As eCommerce continues to increase, do you think Sephora needs to re-think this strategy, or will it be net-net more beneficial? Should Sephora discourage exploratory purchases via digital channels?